Building Big (Part 5) – Q&A with Terry Virgo

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There are a variety of reasons why people do this.
We want to win people where they are winnable.
We don’t want people on a team whose heart isn’t in it – it is better to release them.
When it’s a personal pain it is a time to minister to them and show your care for them.
Because the reasons are varied, the response will also be varied.
When someone’s heart is no longer in the vision, you need to let them go.

It was gradual as Terry started helping different churches.
Initially when they needed a name they started calling it ‘Coastlands’.
A prophecy was given by John Groves about no well-worn paths and they came up with the name Newfrontiers to reflect this.
This happened in the mid-eighties.
Globally there are more than 1500 churches in Newfrontiers.

It helped that Terry was single at the time!
Initially he lived on his savings – which happened for a few weeks.
His parents thought he was crazy giving his job up.
He lived by faith for two years – he never sent a prayer letter or dropped a hint, but the income came.
He had to pay the rent, bought ‘challenged’ newspaper to give out, paid to hire a schoolroom to meet in, pay for gas for his motorbike, etc.
There were no churches who were funding this kind of thing at the time – and there wasn’t much counsel given either.

The most difficult thing to deal with was a crisis that happened in India where the person on the International Team was running it very legalistically.
The lid came off this while Terry was in India at a conference.
There was a lot of opposition as Terry started planting churches– particularly from other Christians around the Brighton area.